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<^;. 


AN    ACCOUNT 


Manuscripts  of  Gen.  Dearborn, 


AS  MASSACUUSKTTS  COMMISSIONER  IN  1838  AND   1839 
FOR  THE  SALK  OF  THE  .  V 


SENECA  INDIAN  LANDS 


STATE    OF    KEW    YOEK. 


Read  before  The  Albany  Institute,  October  12th,  1880, 


HENRY  A.  HOMES,  LL.  D., 

Librarian  of  the  State  Library. 


ALBANY: 

WEED,  PARSONS  AND  COMPANY,  PRINTERS. 

l88l. 


tips  LiBRARr 

AN    ACCOUNT 


Manuscripts  of  Gen.  Dearborn, 


AS  MASSACHUSETTS  COMMISSIONER  IN   1838  AND   is 
FOR  THE  SALE  OF  THE 


SENECA  INDIAN  LANDS 


STATE    OF   NEW    YOEK, 


Read  before  Thb  Albany  Institute,  Octoijer  12th,  1880, 

BY 

HENEY  A.  HOMES,  LL.D., 

Librarian  of  the  State  Library. 


ALBANY: 
WEED,  PARSONS  AND  COMPANY,  PRINTERS. 

i88i. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.archive.org/details/accountofmanuscrOOhomeiala 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GEN.  DEAIJBORX 
AS  MASSACHUSETTS  COMMISSIONER  IN  1838  AND  1839, 
FOR  THE -SALE  OF  THE  SENECA  INDIAN  LANDS. 

By  Henky  a.  Homes,  LL.D. 

[Read  before  the  Albany  Institute,  October  12,  1880.] 

At  a  sale  at  auction,  in  Boston,  in  October,  1878,  of  books  and 
manuscripts  from  the  library  of  J.  W.  Thornton,  one  of  the  titles  in 
the  catalogue,  describing  the  articles  offered  for  sale,  read  as  follows: 

"Journal  of  a  Mission  as  Commissioner  from  the  State  of  ^[assaelui- 
setts  to  the  Seneca  and  Tiiscarora  Indians;  and  an  account  of  the 
treaties  held  with  those  tribes,  in  the  years  1838  and  1830,  for  the  sale 
of  their  lands,  and  for  their  emigration  west  of  the  ^Iississi]ipi.  By 
H.  A.  S.  Dearborn,  Superintendent  of  Massachusetts.     In  3  vols.    4to." 

It  Avas  thonght  that  these  volnmes  miglit  be  wortli  securing  for  our 
.State  Library.  I  wrote  to  Hon.  Lewis  H.  Morgan  of  Rochester,  to 
obtain  his  opinion  as  to  their  probable  value.  You  are  all  well  aware 
of  Mr.  Morgan's  extensive  acquaintance  with  New  York  Indian  His- 
tory. His  well-known  volume,  "The  League  of  the  Iroquois,"  gives 
their  history,  religion  and  customs  with  a  touching  eloquence.  In 
answer,  he  referred  me  for  explanation  to  a  passage  in  this  volume. 
From  this  extract,  and  from  the  manuscripts  themselves,  I  learned 
that  they  referred  to  a  treaty  of  the  United  States  with  the  Seneca 
and  Tuscarora  Indians  in  the  extreme  western  part  of  this  State, 
whereby  119,000  acres  of  their  lands  were  to  be  sold,  and  they  were  to 
emigrate  to  Green  Bay,  Michigan.  But  the  measures  by  which  the 
treaty  with  the  Indians  had  been  secured  were  represented  to  have 
been  tainted  with  so  much  corruption  and  fraud,  there  was  so  much 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  themselves  to  emigrating,  they 
were  supported  in  their  opposition  by  so  many  friends,  especially  by 
the  Society  of  Friends,  that  the  purchasers,  the  Ogdeii  Land  Company, 
finally  made  a  compromise,  and  yielded  up  to  them  more  than  half  of 
the  land  which  they  had  purchased. 

This  transaction  was  painted  by  Mr.  Morgan,  in  the  passage  to 
which  he  referred  me,  in  very  sombre  colors.  I  quote  a  portion  of  it 
as  illustrative  of  the  nature  and  importance  of  the  subject: 

"  The  darkest  frauds,  the  basest  bribery,  and  the  most  execrable 
intrigues  which  soulless  avarice  could  suggest  have  been  practiced  in 


4  TJie  Dearborn  Manuscripts 

open  day,  upon  this  defenseless  and  much-injured  people.  The  nat- 
ural feelings  of  man  and  the  sense  of  public  justice  are  violated  and 
appalled  at  the  narration  of  their  proceedings.  *  *  *  The  Georgia 
treaty  with  the  Cherokees,  so  justly  held  up  to  execration,  is  a  white 
page  compared  with  the  treaties  of  1838  and  1842,  which  were  forced 
upon  the  Senecas.  This  project  has  already,  however,  in  part,  been 
defeated  by  the  load  of  iniquity  which  hung  upon  the  skirts  of  these 
treaties."* 

In  another  passage,  in  the  same  volume,  he  remarks: 

"The  (United  States)  government  bartered  away  its  integrity  to 
minister  to  the  rapacious  demands  of  the  Ogden  Land  Company."! 

The  author  is  an  adopted  member  of  the  Seneca  tribe. 

In  view  of  this  and  similar  declarations,  I  concluded  that  it  was 
certainly  for  the  interest  of  the  State,  that  in  a  transaction  where  the 
good  name  of  the  United  States,  of  Massachusetts  and  of  New  York, 
were  all  more  or  less  implicated,  the  original  documents  belonging  to 
one  of  the  chief  parties  to  the  transaction,  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
should  enter  into  the  possession  of  the  State  of  New  York.  And 
accordingly,  the  three  volumes,  of  about  1,100  pages  of  manuscript, 
letter-sheet  size,  were  purchased  at  the  auction  for  about  twenty 
dollars  each.  On  examination,  I  found  them  to  be  a  valuable  addition 
to  the  historical  records  of  the  State,  and  well  worthy  of  being  pre- 
served for  reference. 

Before  describing  the  M88.,  let  me  very  briefly  mention  a  few  of 
the  antecedent  historical  facts  regarding  our  relations  with  these 
Indians,  for  the  sake  of  some  of  the  younger  members  in  the  audi- 
ence, who  may  not  be  familiar  with  them.  Massachusetts  and  New 
York,  under  their  original  powers  from  Great  Britain,  claimed  juris- 
diction from  their  western  boundaries  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  This 
interfering  claim  of  Massachusetts  was  settled  by  an  agreement  or 
contract  of  that  State  with  New  York,  December  16,  1786,  at  Hart- 
ford, Conn,,  by  which  the  territorial  jurisdiction  of  New  York  was 
acknowledged,  while  Massachusetts  only  retained  the  right  to  buy  the 
4,000,000  acres  which  she  claimed,  from  the  Indians,  at  such  times  as 
they  were  willing  to  sell.  This  pre-emptive  right  was  one  which 
Massachusetts  could  dispose  of  in  portions  to  other  parties.  The  first 
great  sale  was  made  to  Messrs.  Phelps  &  Gorham,  in  1788,  and  next  in 
time,  1,250,000  acres  to  Eobert  Morris,  the  great  financier,  the  nation's 
great  benefactor,  in  1791.  He  formed  the  Holland  Land  Company  to 
facilitate  the  sale  of  the  land.  It  was  this  purchase  which  brought 
upon  Morris  those  financial   embarrassments   which  could  and   did 

♦Morgan's  League  of  the  Iroquois,  Eoch.,  1851,  p.  33.    tThe  same,  p.  438. 


On  the  Seneca  hidian  Lands.  5 

confine  him  for  three  long  years  in  a  debtor's  prison,  uttering  bitter 
words  against  some  of  his  creditors ;  and  the  country  was  too  poor  to 
relieve  him. 

It  was  after  the  Big  Tree  Treaty  at  Geneseo,  in  1797,  (of  which 
treaty  there  is  an  official  copy  in  the  State  Library),  a  treaty  in  which 
Robert  Morris  and  Thomas  Morris,  his  son,  participated,  that  the 
Indians  ceded  the  title  to  a  large  portion  of  their  lands.  In  view  of 
his  embarrassments,  Morris  organized  the  North  American  Land 
Company,  jn  which  Nicholson  and  Crreenleaf  were  partners.  He 
accused  the  latter  of  cheating  him,  and  of  being  the  occasion  of  liis 
becoming  the  inmate  of  a  prison.* 

The  Indians  after  that  treaty  were  gradually  in  the  extreme  western 
part  of  the  State  disposing  of  their  lands  to  eager  purchasers.  At  last, 
the  invasion  of  a  white  population  all  around  the  four  reservations  of 
Allegany,  Buffalo,  Cattaraugus  and  Tonawanda,  which  contained  in  all 
only  about  1 19,000,  of  an  original  6,000,000  acres,  excited  the  earnest 
desire  of  those  who  had  purchased  the  pre-emptive  right  from 
Massachusetts,  now  called  the  Ogden  Company,  and  who  were  the  suc- 
cessors of  Robert  Morris  and  his  associates,  to  enter  into  possession  of 
these  Indian  lands  by  purchase.  In  their  general  aim,  they  were 
sustained  by  the  policy  of  the  United  States.  President  Van  Buren, 
in  a  message  to  Congress,  in  December  1837,  urged  the  removal  of  these 
Indians,  declaring  that  it  had  been  the  "  fixed  policy  of  the  govern- 
ment from  the  days  of  the  administration  of  Jefferson,  in  1804,  to  re- 
move the  Indians  west  of  the  Mississippi ; "  and  in  his  special  message 
of  January  14, 1840,  he  states  that  40,000  Indians  had  been  removed 
there  since  1837  from  different  States,  f 

In  1838  a  law  of  the  United  States  for  carrying  into  effect  a  treaty 
which  had  been  adopted  by  the  Senate  for  the  emigration  of  the  New 
York  Indians,  was  amended,  the  treaty  not  having  been  accepted  by 
the  Senecas.  In  the  summer  of  this  year,  the  Ogden  Company 
notified  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Everett,  that  a  council 
was  to  be  held  at  Buffalo  Reservation  with  the  Indians,  for  the  accept- 
ance of  this  treaty,  whereby  that  company  would  become  the  purchaser 
of  the  Indian  title,  and  asked  that  Massachusetts  should  be  present  by 
her  superintendent,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  agreement  with 
New  York  in  1786,  and  meet  the  United  States  commissioner  to  pro- 
tect her  own  rights  and  those  of  the  Indians. 

♦Doty's  Livingston's  County  History.    8vo.    1876. 

tTliis  message  will  not  be  found  in  Williams"  Statesman's  Manual  ;  but  was  a  special  mes- 
sage and  must  be  sought  for  only  in  the  journals  of  the  Senate. 


6  The  Dearborn  Mamiscripts 

'  Governor  Everett  appointed,  as  sucli  superintendent.  Gen.  Henry  A. 
S.  Dearborn.  He  was  son  of  Gen.  Henry  Dearborn,  who  had  been  en- 
gaged in  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  in  Sullivan's  campaign  in 
New  York  in  1779,  had  been  Secretary  of  War  from  1801  to  1809,  and 
finally  had  held  command  in  the  war  of  1812,  chiefly  on  the  frontiers 
of  the  State  of  New  York  and  Canada.  His  son  the  commissioner 
also  had  been  a  public  servant  during  a  large  part  of  his  life,  had  been 
Adjutant-General  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts  for  ten  years,  from  1834 
to  1843,  and  for  five  years  was  mayor  of  the  city  of  Roxbury,  from 
1847  until  his  death  in  1851.  He  was  a  man  of  large  experience, 
of  high  honor  and  integrity. 

He  attached  great  importance  to  the  functions  which  he  dis- 
charged in  1838  and  1839  as  Massachusetts  commissioner  at  the 
Bufialo  Creek  council,  to  superintend  the  disposal  of  the  Indian  lands  ; 
and  in  his  leisure  hours  in  the  following  years  he  collected  and  person- 
ally arranged  all  his  original  manuscripts  connected  with  this  mission, 
and  bound  them  into  three  quarto  volumes  of  letter  sheet  size  of  about 
three  hundred  and  sixty  pages  each. 

Of  these  volumes,  the  first  one  contains  eighteen  original  letters 
from  Gov.  Everett,  chiefly  to  Gen.  Dearborn,  and  eighteen  letters 
chiefly  to  the  Governor  from  Gen.  Dearborn  ;  the  treaty  with  the 
several  tribes ;  the  official  report  to  the  Governor  of  his  first  mission 
commencing  August,  1838,  with  an  appendix  of  documents,  embrac- 
ing statements  of  the  chiefs,  Judge  Stryker's  statement,  in  all  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  pages  ;  a  second  report  of  his  second  mission 
later  in  the  same  year,  in  November  and  December,  with  the  docu- 
ments, making  about  fifty  pages ;  several  letters  from  Mr.  Ogden  of  the 
Ogden  Company  to  Gen.  Dearborn,  and  various  other  letters.  I  have 
not  found  either  of  these  reports  in  print  among  thedocumentsfof  the 
State  of  Massachusetts. 

The  second  volume  bears  a  title  given  by  Gen.  Dearborn,  the  same 
title  which  was  given  to  all  the  three  volumes  in  the  printed  catalogue 
of  the  MSS.  as  sold  at  the  auction  sale,  and  which  we  quoted  at  the 
beginning  of  this  paper. 

If  the  preceding  reports  are  not  sufficient  to  give  us  a  clear 
view  of  the  part  taken  by  Massachusetts  in  a  treaty  which  has 
been  said  to  compromise  both  her  honor  and  that  of  New  York,  we 
have  in  addition  for  testimony  in  this  volume,  three  hundred  and 
fifty-six  pages  filled  with  Gen.  Dearborn's  private  "  Journal  of  a  Mission 
to  the  Senecas"  as  written  down  by  him  from  day  to  day,  containing 
all  the  occurrences  from  the  hour  of  his  departure  until    that  of  his 


On  the  Seneca  Indian  Lands.  7 

return  to  Boston,  names  of  the  individuals  with  whom  he  conversed, 
and  notes  of  his  conversations  with  them. 

The  third  volume  contains  a  similar  private  journal  of  his  second 
mission  in  November  and  December,  1838,  of  about  one  hundred 
pages;  and  also  a  journal  of  a  tour  to  Cattaraugus  on  a  branch  of  the 
same  subject  in  1839  to  meet  the  Secretary  of  War,  J.  R.  Poinsett. 
There  are  also  bound  up  with  these  journals,  letters  from  Ransom  H. 
Gillet,  the  United  States  commissioner;  from  N.  T.  Strong,  a  Seneca 
chief;  several  from  theiSecretary  of  State  of  Massachusetts;  many  from 
fionnondeali,  a  chief,  son  of  N.  T.  Strong;  more  letters  from  Gov. 
Everett,  and  from  T.  L.  Ogden;  and  finally  as  cumulative  testimony, 
that  nothing  might  be  wanting  for  the  most  thorough  presentation  of 
the  whole  case,  and  not  the  least  light  and  shade  be  lacking  to  com- 
plete the  picture,  this  last  volume  contains  the  identical  letters  which 
Gen.  Dearborn  mailed  from  day  to  day  during  his  absence  to  ]Mrs. 
Dearborn,  to  the  number  of  twenty -nine,  covering  eighty-seven  pages. 
They  bear  the  postmarks,  and  have  apparently  been  preserved  without 
diminution  or  erasure,  and  in  them  he  speaks  without  reserve  of  the 
minutia)  of  the  affair  in  which  he  was  engaged.  The  three  volumes 
as  a  whole  present  every  phase  of  the  transactions  in  question,  as  they 
came  before  the  Massachusetts  commissioner. 

The  transactions  treated  of  in  these  volumes  did  not  awaken  a  national 
interest,  like  the  removal  of  the  Indians  from  (ieorgia  in  IS'^O,  an 
event  commemorated  in  volumes  entitled  Speeches  on  the  Indian 
Bill,  1830,  and  Essays  on  the  Present  Crisis,  etc.,  signed  William  Penn, 
by  the  father  of  William  M.  Evarts,  and  published  in  1820.  Still  they 
occasioned  the  printing  of  as  many  as  fifteen  pamphlets  at  least,  by 
different  parties,  between  the  years  1840  and  1845,  large  extracts  from 
some  of  which  were  published  in  England.  Most  of  these  emanated 
from  those  who  represented  the  Indians  as  greatly  wronged,  especially 
from  the  yearly  meetings  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  The  substance  of 
the  complaint  of  these  latter  was,  that  the  alleged  treaty  was  fraudu- 
lent; that  usage  and  the  law  of  1838  required  that  the  consent  of  the 
chiefs  should  have  been  obtained  in  open  council ;  but  that  after  obtain- 
ing the  consent  of  a  small  minority  in  open  council,  the  United  States 
commissioner  had  obtained  the  consent  of  the  rest,  singly,  and  not  in 
council;  that  bribery  had  been  freely  used  with  individuals  to  secure 
their  consent;  th^t  of  the  2,000  Senecas  not  150  were  desirous  of 
going  west,  counting    men,  women  and  children,  and   that  all   the 


8  The  Dearborn  Manuscripts 

remainder,  including  a  majority  of  the  chiefs,  were  determinedly  op- 
posed to  leaving  their  homes. 

It  appeared  that  Mr.  Gillet  had  informed  the  Indians  that,  under 
the  amended  treaty  of  1838,  he  thought  that  if  they  should  reject  it 
they  could  none  the  less  be  compelled  to  go  to  the  West.  Gen.  Dear- 
born, however,  speaking  in  the  name  of  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts, 
assured  them  that  they  would  not  be  compelled  to  go.* 

But  on  the  point  of  the  necessity  of  securing  the  consent  of  the 
chiefs  in  open  council,  after  the  treaty  had  once  been  submitted  to 
them  there,  and  had  been  debated,  it  appears  that  the  suggestion  had 
proceeded  from  Gen.  Dearborn  himself  to  Mr.  Gillet,  that  he  would  do 
well  to  call  the  chiefs,  individually,  to  his  room  and  confer  with  them 
there.  The  reason  for  his  making  this  suggestion  was,  that  he  was 
persuaded  that  nearly  all  the  violent  opposition  to  the  treaty  proceeded 
from  interested  whites,  who  wished  to  have  the  Indians  retained  on 
their  reservations,  for  the  sake  of  mill  privileges  and  lumber  privileges 
for  which  they  paid  very  little ;  or  for  some  other  motive  of  no  greater 
significance,  such  as  that  the  Indians  were  pecuniarily  indebted  to 
them.  Gen.  Dearborn  observes  in  his  journal,  that  if  the  same  offers 
were  made  to  any  laboring  whites  which  were  made  by  the  United 
States  Government  to  these  Indians,  they  were  so  liberal  that  men 
would  abandon  any  homes  to  avail  themselves  of  them. 

He  writes  thus  upon  this  branch  of  the  subject : 

"To  reason  with  the  ignorant,  and  attempt  to  do  good  to  the 
prejudiced,  suspicious  and  most  debased  of  the  human  species,  is  to 
labor  without  results  either  gratifying  to  us  or  beneficial  to  them. 
Here  has  been  a  boon  offered  which  would  depopulate  any  country 
town  in  New  England,  and  hurry  them  to  the  West  with  glad  and 
grateful  hearts  ;  but  the  miserable  savages  are  incapable  of  appreciat- 
ing the  generous  humanity  of  the  Government." 

As  evidence  that  the  Indians  were  most  bountifully  dealt  with  by 
the  United  States,  the  following  figures  are  presented  by  Gen.  Dear- 
born as  the  money  value  of  what  was  offered  in  exchange  for  the 
119,000  acres  of  land  by  the  parties  interested.  They  were  offered 
1,824,000  acres  of  land  at  Green  Bay,  which,  at  $1.2o  an  acre,  was 
worth  12,280,000.  The  amount  to  be  given  them  in  money  was 
$433,500;  the  amount  to  be  paid  them  by  the  Ogden  Company  was 
$211,600 ;  the  amount  for  exploration  of  the  new  territory  was 
116,000.  This  made  a  total  sum  of  about  $3,000,000  to  the  two 
tribes,  f 

*  Dearborn  MSS.  II,  97,  98,  99.  +  Dearborn  MSS.,  112,  126. 


Oti  the  Seneca  Indian  Lands.  9 

On  January  14,  1840,  President  Van  Buren  sent  tlie  treaty  tlius 
tainted  with  allegations  of  fraud,  with  a  special  message  of  six  pages 
on  the  subject,  to  the  Senate.  (It  will  not  be  found  in  the  collection  of 
his  messages  in  Williams'  Statesman's  Manual,  but  must  be  sought  for 
in  the  journals  of  the  Senate.)  He  speaks  in  iiivor  of  the  general 
proposition  of  the  removal  of  the  Indians,  but  declares  that  in  his 
opinion  the  signatures  had  been  fraudulently  obtained,  and  that  there- 
fore the  treaty  ought  not  to  be  ratified.  The  question  was  debated  on 
eleven  different  days  in  the  Senate ;  and  finally,  after  the  failure  of 
many  proposed  resolutions  from  Tallmadge,  Clay,  Preston,  Porter  and 
others,  the  vote  stood  nineteen  to  nineteen,  and  tlie  treaty  was  only 
ratified  by  the  casting  vote  of  E.  M.  Johnson,  the  Vice-President,  in 
the  affirmative.  The  New  York  Senators,  Messrs.  Tallmadge  and 
Wright,  voted  in  the  affirmative.  The  dififerences  of  opinion  were  not 
on  party  lines,  though  Mr.  Clay  voted  in  the  negative.  Mr.  Sevier  in 
1840  presented  a  memorial  of  sixty-seven  chiefs  of  the  Senecas,  beg- 
ging that  no  appropriation  be  made  to  carry  out  the  treaty,  as  they 
did  not  intend  to  leave  their  homes  in  New  York.  In  1841  six  or 
seven  petitions  were  presented  in  Congress  that  the  Indians  in  New 
York  be  forcibly  removed.  In  a  few  days  the  committee  was  dis- 
charged from  further  consideration  of  the  petitions. 

In  Massachusetts,  Governor  Everett,  in  his  message  in  1839,  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  if  the  State  had  known  all  that  it  had  since 
learned,  it  would  not  have  consented  to  the  request  of  the  Ogden 
Company.  A  committee  of  the  Senate  reported  in  the  same  spirit, 
but  expressed  the  opinion  that  it  was  too  late  to  attemjit  to  reverse 
the  action  which  had  taken  place. 

The« testimony  of  W.  H.  Seward,  at  the  time  Governor  of  New  York, 
corroborates  the  declarations  of  President  Van  Buren  that  the  treaty 
was  obtained  by  corruption.  Gov.  Seward,  in  a  long  private  letter  on 
the  subject,  dated  Albany,  June  15,  1841,  writes: 

"  I  am  fully  satisfied  that  the  consent  of  the  Senecas  was  obtained 
by  fraud,  corruption  and  violence,  and  it  is  therefore  false,  and  ought 
be  held  void.  The  removal  of  the  Indians,  under  a  treaty  thus 
made,  would  be  a  great  crime  against  an  unoffending  and  injured 
people ;  and  I  earnestly  hope  that  before  any  further  proceedings  are 
taken  to  accomplish  that  object,  the  whole  subject  maybe  reconsidered 
by  the  United  States."*     He  also  said  that  the  treaty  of  the  United 

*  Quoted  from  "A  Further  Illustration  of  the  Case  of  the  Seneca  Indians  ;"  Pliila.,  1841, 
9,  p.  80. 


10  The  Dearlorn  Manuscripts 

States  with    the  Senecas  was  made  in  open  violation  of  the  settled 
policy  of  New  York  in  dealing  with  them. 

The  final  result  of  all  the  negotiations  and  disputes  was,  that  very 
few  of  the  Senecas  or  Tuscaroras  removed  beyond  the  Mississippi ; 
and  the  Ogden  Company,  in  view  of  the  various  difficulties  which 
were  raised  in  their  path,  consented  to  a  compromise,  by  which  the 
Senecas  retained  52,000  acres  of  the  119,000  in  controversy,  being  the 
two  reservations  which  they  now  possess  in  Allegany  and  Cattaraugus 
counties.     This  act  was  what  is  called  the  treaty  of  1842. 

In  consequence  of  these  treaties  of  1838  and  1842,  there  occurred 
a  revolution  in  the  Seneca  tribe.  They  adopted  something  like  a  con- 
stitution and  new  laws,  with  a  complete  system  of  government.  A 
very  valuable  report  made  to  the  Legislature,  January  22,  1857,  from 
the  judiciary  committee  of  the  Senate,  represents  the  rights  of  tlie 
Senecas  to  their  lands  as  absolute,  through  a  series  of  conveyances 
down  to  that  date  from  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  from  Phelps  and 
from  Morris;  and  that  no  parties  had  now  any  pre  emptive  rights  in 
iheir  lands.  Thus  out  of  the  law  of  1838  and  the  treaty  of  the  same 
year  had  proceeded  the  law  of  1845  of  the  State  of  New  York,  which 
guaranteed  to  the  Senecas  their  lands.  So  that  if  that  treaty  was 
evil,  a  power  for  good  has  been  seen  to  proceed  from  things  evil  in 
this  case,  as  in  multitudes  of  other  cases  in  human  affairs. 

I  have  not  been  so  rash  as  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  expediency 
or  justice  of  these  transactions  with  so  little  opportunity  of  studying 
them.  The  facts  are  many,  and  the  documents  are  voluminous. 
So  far  as  New  York  alone  is  concerned,  I  had  little  occasion  to  be  so- 
licitous. Her  relations  to  the  Indians  under  her  jurisdiction  are 
abundantly  justified  by  the  Society  of  Friends,  who  constituted 
themselves  the  special  agents  to  defend  their  rights  in  this  very  case. 
In  the  report  of  the  joint  committee  of  four  yearly  meetings  in  1847, 
six  years  after  the  close  of  the  dispute,  they  acknowledge  explicitly 
the  kindness  of  New  York  to  the  Indians  within  her  jurisdiction. 
They  say : 

"The  uniform  justice  and  compassion  of  New  York  toward  the  Six 
Nations  who  were  located  on  its  territory  present  in  retrospect  one  of 
the  most  pleasant  scenes  on  the  pages  of  our  history."* 

It  may  be  felt  by  some  that  these  Dearborn  documents  refer  to  dead 
issues,  and  that  they  have  no  relation  to  the  live  questions  of  the  day, 
and  are  therefore  worthless.  Still,  if  the  value  put  upon  historical 
researches  be  not  a  delusion,  if  to  secure  the  materials  by  means  of 

*  Proceedings  of  Joint  Committee,  181". 


On  the  Seneca  Indian  Lands.  11 

which  to  maintain  the  good  repute  and  honor  of  a  State,  and  thus 
guard  against  a  blot  upon  her  escutcheon,  be  a  worthy  aim,  then  I 
think  that  to  be  in  possession  of  the  complete  papers  of  Massachusetts, 
acting  under  the  authority  of  the  United  States  and  of  New  York,  in 
a  transaction  where  some  have  impugned  the  honor  and  justice  of 
New  York,  is  a  valuable  acquisition  to  the  records  of  the  State,  If 
Massachusetts  cared  not  for  these  papers,  yet  the  day  may  come  when 
New  York  may  be  glad  to  appeal  to  these  documents,  making  Massa- 
chusetts to  be  a  witness,  to  justify  her  treatment  of  the  Indian  denizens 
within  her  jurisdiction. 


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